


Nora Valkyrie and the Grimm Dungeons

by vividder



Series: RWBY HP AU [2]
Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling, RWBY
Genre: BAMF Nora, Book 2: Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets, Gen, Hogwarts AU
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-19
Updated: 2018-12-19
Packaged: 2019-09-22 21:58:05
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 14
Words: 13,623
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17067890
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/vividder/pseuds/vividder
Summary: Back at Hogwarts for their second year, Nora and Ren find themselves caught up in the drama when the Chamber of Secrets opens, endangering each other and their friends.





	1. Beginning of the Year

Another year, another adventure.

Friends together, yet again.

 

Ruby turned her face to the pale morning sunshine as she and her friends waited outside the greenhouse for their first class of their second year at Hogwarts.  Standing with her sister, Yang, and their friends, Blake, Nora, Ren, and Jaune, she felt a sense of belonging and peace which she’d missed all summer. There was nothing like being with your friends after a long separation, that was for sure.

Her reverie was interrupted by the arrival of Professor Sprout, who clapped her hands as she approached, already frowning.  “Greenhouse three today!”

“Ooh!” Yang said as the group began to trudge through the dewy grass.  “What do you think they have in there?”

“I think that’s where they keep the plants with teeth!” Nora exclaimed, coming up behind Yang.  She made an exaggerated chomping gesture with her mouth, and her teeth clicked audibly.

“Nora, cut it out,” her friend Ren admonished from behind her.  Then he smiled. “Everyone knows they keep those in Greenhouse Four.”

Everyone laughed at that--not necessarily because it was funny, but because Ren, Mr. Silent and Stoic, had made a joke.

In the greenhouse, the students lined up at their tables and the lesson began.  

“What are the properties of the mandrake?” Professor Sprout asked.

Blake raised her hand.  “Mandrakes are used in healing.  If someone’s been cursed, a mandrake can help restore them to their original state.”

“Excellent.  And can you tell me why it’s dangerous, Miss Belladonna?”

“Its sound alone is deadly.”  For all her knowledge, Blake seemed bashful about her answers.

“Wonderful.  Ten points to Gryffindor.”  Professor Sprout nodded and gestured to the earmuffs sitting on the tables.  “We will be using these to protect ourselves while we repot the mandrakes. Their cries are not yet deadly, as they are currently immature, but still very unpleasant to experience and may result in ringing of the ears, migraine headaches, and vertigo.  The earmuffs will be enough to protect you, but if you don’t feel comfortable, please feel free to leave, although I will require an explanation after class and you will lose points if your reason for leaving the class is not substantial.”

Blake looked around hesitantly before walking out of the greenhouse.  After all, her sensitive Faunus ears wouldn’t be able to be covered by the earmuffs.  

To be honest, she was probably better off than most of the class, who showed up to their next lesson covered in smears of mud and wiping sweat off their brows.  Turns out, Mandrakes did not like being replanted, which her classmates had to discover firsthand.

Yeah, Blake was glad she’d missed that.


	2. Quidditch Troubles

Quidditch practices began early that year, with Ruby being dragged out of bed for early morning strategy sessions before the end of the first week.  These weren’t as bad as she’d initially assumed--until that first Saturday, when Gryffindor came out of the dressing room to use the Quidditch pitch, only to find the Slytherin team standing with their brooms, waiting for them.

“We have the field reserved for today!” Oliver Wood shouted as they approached.

“We have a note!” the Slytherin team captain shouted back.  “We’ve got a new seeker.”

Wood took the note and scanned it over, while Ruby looked for the new seeker.  Near the back of the group stood Cardin Winchester, looking absolutely puffed-up with pride.

“Isn’t that Vermillion Winchester's son?” someone asked.

“Funny that,” the Slytherin captain noted, just loving how he seemed to be pulling one over on the Gryffindors.  “Mr. Winchester's just donated these Nimbus Two Thousand and Ones to the entire Slytherin team. Have you seen the comparisons in Quidditch Daily?  Twice as much control as those old Cleansweeps.” He looked off at something in the distance. “What are they doing here?”

Ruby turned to see Yang and Blake heading over from where they’d been sitting on the bleachers, watching the practice.  “What’s going on, Ruby?” Yang asked, coming up behind her. “Why aren’t you playing?”

“Slytherin has a new seeker,” Cardin announced, overhearing hre question.  “We were just admiring the generous gift my father made to the Slytherin Quidditch team.”  He gestured to his own shiny new broom.

“At least Gryffindor chooses their players based on merit, not based on the donations their parents make,” Blake said under her breath, but Cardin heard her anyway.

“At least we don’t stoop to socializing with flea-ridden furbags,” Cardin replied with a self-assured smile.

Yang launched herself forward and her fist connected with Cardin’s nose, followed by a satisfying  _ crack _ .  Blood flowed down the boy’s face and over his Quidditch robes, and Yang shook out her stinging, bloody hand.  

“Say it again.  I dare you.” 

Ruby grabbed Yang’s arm.  As much as she hated hearing Blake get insulted, she wasn’t just going to let her sister hurt people out of nowhere.  “Come on, sis.”

“What’s going on here?” Professor Oobleck strode towards them, his brown coat billowing behind him in the cool morning breeze.  “Winchester, are you all right?”

He pointed to Yang.  “She punched me!”

Yang’s jaw dropped.  “But he--”

Oobleck wasn’t having any of it.  “I will get your side of the story in detention tonight when you’re cleaning the trophy room, Miss Xiao Long.  Violence is never a justifiable response to any perceived insult or slight. Please be in my office at 6 sharp.  Mr. Winchester, go get cleaned up.”

Yang opened her mouth to respond in indignation, but to everyone’s surprise, Blake cut her off.  “It’s not worth it, Yang.”

 

That evening, Ruby found herself walking to the library to finish an assignment when a noise from within the empty hallway startled her.  It almost sounded...like a whisper.

“Hello?” Ruby asked into thin air.

_ Come...Come to me… _ the almost-inaudible whisper said.

A shiver traveled up up her spine and she checked behind her, scanning every nook and cranny of the hallway to make sure that she wasn’t being pranked.

Not a soul in sight.

Maybe she’d just imagined it?

Ruby continued down the hallway, walking just a little faster than before.

 

Yang and Blake stood in their room, opposite each other.  “Why didn’t you tell Oobleck what was going on?” Yang asked.

“Because it doesn’t matter!” Blake exclaimed.  “Yang, people say stuff like that all the time.  You didn’t need to hit him. Now there’s a target on both of our backs, and it wasn’t any of your business to begin with!”

“Yeah, but it is my business.  You’re my friend, and I don’t let people talk about my friends that way.”

Blake sat on her bed and sighed.  “You shouldn’t have bothered. All you got was detention.   I get that you care, but Cardin’s family’s rich. Now they’ll just think that Faunus and their supporters are violent and crazy, and nothing’s going to change.”  She hung her head. “I appreciate the effort, but next time, just let it go.”

Yang sat next to her friend. “Oobleck heard my story and took seventy points from his own house for what Winchester said and said he’d get detention too.  People are on your side, Blake. They see that it’s wrong to say things like that, and they’re taking action too.”

“Doesn’t change the fact that Winchester's just going to act like it’s all because of political correctness and stuff like that.”  Blake looked up at Yang. “But thank you for thinking I’m worth getting in trouble for.”

Yang shrugged and smiled.  “You’d do the same for me, no biggie.”  And next time, she wouldn’t let anyone see her kicking Winchester's teeth in.


	3. Happy Deathday, Nick!

Nora and Ren ran into Nearly Headless Nick while walking back from a rainy evening visit to Hagrid in his cabin.  

“What’s wrong, Nick?  You seem a little down,” Nora observed.

“Ah, well...it’s nothing for you to worry about, Nora.”  But apparently whatever it was still bothered him because his flat voice became much more animated.  “But don’t you think having a blunt axe driven into your neck forty-five times qualified you to join the Headless Hunt?”

“Oh, definitely.  Forty-five attempted decapitations would be more than enough, in my opinion,” Nora answered brightly.

“Yeah, that does seem like a lot,” Ren agreed, but much less enthusiastically, as if he hadn’t quite known what to say.

“If only the axe had been properly sharpened!” Nick lamented, pulling a sheet of paper out of his frock coat and waving it.  “It would have saved me so much pain and ridicule, in both life and death. But alas, I suppose it wasn’t to be.” Nearly-Headless Nick hung his head, which meant that it began sliding off the ghostly neck stump, revealing the severed bones and sinew beneath.

“Maybe you could just form your own group for improperly-beheaded ghosts,” Ren suggested.  

“The Nearly-Headless Hunt!  That’d show them!” Nora said, latching onto the idea.

“My boy, have you seen any other nearly-headless ghosts?  I’m afraid a hunt of one is no hunt at all.” A small smile appeared on Nick’s face.  “But if you two are so eager to cheer me up, I suppose you could do me one small favor, if it isn’t too much trouble.”

Nora and Ren exchanged a glance.

“This Halloween is my five hundredth Deathday.  It would be quite an honor if you two would attend.  I’ve reserved one of the roomier dungeons for the event and friends from all over the country will be attending.  Unfortunately, you would have to miss the school feast…” Nick trailed off, looking slightly forlorn again.

“Sure,” Nora said, not really hesitating.  “I mean, you’ll have food, right?”

“Of course, my dear.  What is a party without food?”

 

“This isn’t food,” Nora whispered to Ren as the stood in front of the buffet at the Deathday party.  

He couldn’t disagree with her on that.  Everything on the table was rotten and emitting a foul odor.  If it had not been moldy and disgusting, the ghosts would have had a right feast: There were roasts, fish, fruit, cheeses, and even more that Ren couldn’t identify in their state of decay.

“We made a promise, Nora,” Ren replied quietly.

“But food!”

“Someone back at the tower is bound to have something to eat,” Ren whispered back, taking her hand and pulling her away from the table.

In the background, the orchestra sawed away on ancient instruments, creating a screeching cacophony.

Nearly-Headless Nick floated over to them.  “Enjoying yourselves?”

Nora opened her mouth, but Ren elbowed her.  “Very much so. The orchestra is…”

“Impressive,” Nora piped up.  “Very impressive.”

“I am quite grateful to you for coming.  To miss a highly-anticipated feast in order to honor a promise--admirable qualities for the both of you!  Please, what’s mine is yours!” Nick spread out his arms, gesturing to the whole room, before swooping off to talk to some of his other guests.

They spent some more time at the party, but with the horrid music, the rotten food, and most of the ghosts’ general disinterest in their presence, time just seemed to move far too slowly.

Finally, their stomachs began to growl and the damp had settled into their bones, and they couldn’t take it any longer.  Just as Nick began his speech, the two living guests slipped out the dungeon’s door and made their way back upstairs.

“Hey! Maybe there’s still some dessert left!” Nora whispered.


	4. The Message

As they wound their way out of the dungeon and towards the Great Hall, Nora noticed something along one of the walls.  “Huh.”

Ren walked over, to where she’d poked the intersection between wall and floor.  “What is it?”

Nora rubbed her fingers together thoughtfully. “Something’s leaking.  Let’s check it out.” And with that, she headed off, following the trail of water.

It wound its way up a nearby staircase and down a dimly-lit hallway.  But suddenly, Nora stopped, the splashing as her feet hit the edge of the water sounding way too loud in the empty hallway.  

“That isn’t good,” Ren said, his eyes finding the same patch of wall Nora’s had.

THE CHAMBER OF SECRETS HAS BEEN OPENED.  ENEMIES OF THE HEIR, BEWARE!

Voices began to rumble in the hallways behind them.

“We’d better get out of here,” Ren said, glancing over his shoulder.

“Wait!  Something’s stuck on that sconce.”  Nora lit her wand and held it up, approaching the wall.  Slowly, the shape of Mrs. Norris, still as a statue and hanging from the sconce by her curled tail, came into their view as the noise from both ends of the hallways grew.

They were surrounded.

Nora’s shoulder blades bumped Ren’s as her instincts lead her to survey their surroundings.

A voice called from the crowd around them.  “Enemies of the heir, beware!”

Cardin Winchester.  

But he wasn’t anyone’s primary concern.  The strange behavior of the students in the second-floor corridor had attracted the concern of the teachers, and Filch pushed his way to the front, his scowl melting away when he saw the hanging cat and the children underneath her.

“You!  You killed my cat!” he shrieked, causing Ren to flinch and Nora to tense.  

But thankfully, Filch’s shouting had attracted the other teachers, and Ozpin quickly defused the situation by fetching Mrs. Norris down from the sconce.  “Argus,” Ozpin scolded in a calm, firm voice. ‘We should talk this over somewhere more private. Miss Valkyrie and Mr. Ren, if you wouldn’t mind coming with me--?”  It wasn’t a request.

Someone else interrupted him before they could leave the crowd of spectators.  Lockhart had pushed his way to the front of the rightmost group of students and now joined them in the puddle.  “Professor, if you would like, my office is just above here.”

“Thank you, Gilderoy,” Ozpin said, and the group was off, Ozpin in front, the children in the middle, and a few other teachers following behind.

Nora resisted the urge to hold Ren’s hand.

When they got to the office, a quick spell lit the sconces and Ozpin set Mrs. Norris on the table to examine her.  As he ran his hand over her fur and peered at her eyes, Lockhart paced. “It looks like it could be the Transmorgification Torture.  If I had been there, I could have saved her,” he muttered, then continued to talk about himself and his own adventures, as if a possibly-dead cat wasn’t currently sitting on his desk.

Filch continued to sob, having collapsed immediately into a chair.

Nora glanced at Ren.

Finally, Ozpin spoke up, interrupting Lockhart’s selfish monologue.  “Argus, Mrs. Norris is still alive. She’s merely been Petrified.”

Filch collapsed even deeper into the chair with relief.  “Oh, thank God. She can be saved,” he breathed, his sobs slowing to anger.  “They did this!” he shouted at Nora and Ren.

“We didn’t even touch her, I swear!” Nora shouted back.

“Quiet!” Ozpin admonished both of them.  “Nora Valkyrie and Lie Ren did not hurt Mrs. Norris.  Petrification so total is advanced magic that no second year would be capable of.”

“But there’s still the matter of why they weren’t at the feast,” Oobleck spoke up from where he stood in the corner, his arms crossed over his chest.  “It’s one of the most popular events of the year.”

They explained about Nearly-Headless Nick’s party and their presence there.  “And then I saw water on the staircase and followed it up,” Nora said. ‘I was just curious.  Ren even told me it wasn’t my business.”

“Their story is plausible,” Professor Goodwitch noted.  “I noticed some water on the staircase on my own way up.  Of course, I’ll talk to the ghosts to confirm, but my students had nothing to do with this.”

“I agree.  It seems that Nora and Ren merely had the poor luck to be in the wrong place at the wrong time,” Ozpin pointed out.  “You may go.”

The students nearly ran from the room.


	5. Ruby's Fear

Ruby had found the journal in Moaning Myrtle’s bathroom at the beginning of the year, totally by accident.  She hadn’t intended to go in, but it was the one nearest to her class at the time, so she sucked it up and made do with peeing while a ghost wailed about her horrible life.

She’d started writing in the journal, which had belonged to a girl named Cinder Fall.  Cinder was kind. She understood what Ruby was going through, helped her with homework, and showed her how Hogwarts used to be, how it used to look.  

But the thing with the cat got to her.

She’d been in the restroom at the feast, then she’d been somewhere on the first floor.

Ruby wasn’t the most down-to-earth person ever, but she still normally remembered where she went and why she went there.  She didn’t just have long memory blanks.

And now Mrs. Norris was Petrified, and Ruby was pretty sure she did it.

She told Cinder her fears, writing them out in the journal, but the girl had only laughed.  “That cat’s been around forever. It probably just pissed off something it shouldn’t have. Took long enough.”

Ruby closed the journal, not at ease about this at all.

 

Classes normally provided a distraction for Ruby--after all, she couldn’t worry about possibly having nearly killed a cat with no memory of doing so while making potions, practicing spells, or taking pop quizzes, but the subject of the Chamber of Secrets buzzed around her like an ever-present bee.  

And today it was in her History of Magic class.

Blake raised her hand to ask about it. 

For a moment, Ruby was torn between fascination and fear as Professor Binns, himself a ghost, responded to her: “The Chamber of Secrets, Miss Black, is merely a legend.  If you recall, this class is History of Magic, and therefore, we deal in facts and records, not silly stories.”

Ruby exhaled as they returned to their lesson, but only for a minute.  It was Ren who interrupted Binns next. “But don’t all legends have a basis in fact, Professor?”

Professor Binns made a sighing sound.  “Well, that could be said, yes. But as you all seem determined to discuss this ridiculous legend as if it were academic, let me put your misconceptions to rest.”

Binns quickly provided an overview of the school and its founders, and how there had been an argument early within the school’s history about blood purity.  Should Faunus be admitted? What about humans with an untraceable or impure bloodline? Slytherin had wanted both of these groups excluded, and the other founders disagreed.

“So, legend states that Slytherin built a secret chamber and concealed a monster within, which would be contained until Slytherin’s own heir attended the school and unleashed it in order to destroy those he believed unworthy of studying the art of magic.”  

“What sort of monster, sir?” Yang asked, just as interested in the discussion as the other students.

Ruby hoped her sister couldn’t read her discomfort in her body language.

“It’s a legend!  There is no monster!” Professor Binns exclaimed, exasperated.  “Generations of Hogwarts headmasters haven’t found it--”

“But only Slytherin’s heir can open it, right?  So wouldn’t only Slytherin’s heir be able to find it?” Nora interrupted him.

“And you’d probably need Dark magic too, let’s be real here--” Yang added before Binns got frustrated enough with the rowdy Gryffindors to actually yell at them.

“It’s a myth!” The ghost cried.  “The Chamber doesn’t exist, never has existed, and never will exist!  There is no monster roaming inside Hogwarts’ walls!” Having reclaimed their attention, Professor Binns returned to the lesson at hand.  “Now, we shall return to a land where legends remain legends and only those events supported by records and evidence are lesson topics.”

And just as quickly as the class had become interesting, it became dreary again.

Surprisingly, Ruby was glad.

 

But the topic didn’t fade just because Binns had decided to continue to teach a lesson.  “I think I’d just die if I were Slytherin,” Yang declared. “Like, that’s it. I’d just go home.”

“But I’d miss you!” Ruby protested.

Yang ruffled her hair.  “You’d be in Gryffindor!  I wouldn’t see you anyway!”

Meanwhile, Ren was talking to Blake.  “Do you think there’s actually a Chamber of Secrets?”

She shrugged.  “I’m not sure. But whatever happened to Mrs. Norris was weird, you have to admit that.  I don’t totally believe that a student could do it, you know?”

“But you don’t think I’m the Heir of Slytherin?” Ren asked.

“What? No,” Blake responded, looking shocked.  “Are people actually saying that about you?”

But Ren didn’t get a chance to respond as an opportunity practically bit them in the butt.

They’d just turned into the hallway where Ren and Nora had encountered the message, but for the first time since Halloween, Filch wasn’t guarding the wall.  He’d been sitting there every spare moment since they’d found Mrs. Norris, scowling at everyone that passed. His presence had become as much of a fixture in that hallway as the sconce where Mrs. Norris had been found.

“Perfect time to have a look around,” Yang noted.

“I’m not sure that’s a great idea.” Ruby fidgeted with her robes.  “Filch probably just went to the bathroom or something.”

“But don’t you want to figure out what happened?”

“No, actually!” Ruby snapped at her sister.  “I don’t want to poke my head into holes and get it bitten off by a monster!”

Yang looked at her for a moment.  “Fine, then,” she concluded. “Go write in your journal or something. Be a wimp.”

Ruby glared at her.  “Don’t come crying to me when you get detention.”

Yang waited until Ruby was out of sight to relax, then started her search by running her fingers along the place where the wall met the floor.

“Do you think she’s okay?” Blake asked, looking after Ruby.  “She’s been acting really weird lately.”

Yang shrugged.  “She’s probably fine.  Probably just stressed.”

“They give us a lot more homework this year than they did last year,” Nora noted.

“Hey,” Yang said from where she was examining a window, “did you ever see spiders do anything like this before?”

The others joined her.  A line of small spiders trailed down a wooden post next to the window, winding their way down to a crack in the window and going through it, all in single file.

“I would not call that normal spider behavior,” Nora said.

Not knowing what to make of that, but not able to find anything else, they headed to dinner.

 

The group stuck together through dinner and studied together later, sprawled out on some armchairs in the common room.

“I don’t know how you’re comfortable like that,” Yang commented, noting Blake’s perch on top of an arm of one of the armchairs. 

“I don’t know how you’re comfortable like that,” Blake said, without even looking up from her book.

Nora giggled.

Yang shut her textbook with a  _ clap! _ The others looked up at her.

“Okay, ignoring whether or not the Chamber is actually real, who would want anyone that’s not pure-blooded to leave Hogwarts?”

“Cardin’s the first person that comes to my mind,” Blake said, still seeming to be reading.

“Bingo!” Yang made finger guns.  “His whole family is Slytherin. He’s probably the heir.”

“I think you’re jumping to an unjustified conclusion,” Ren countered.  “Plenty of students have long family histories of Slytherin ancestors. The only difference between them and Cardin is that Cardin is openly a blood-purist and a bully.”

“If we wanted to prove anything, though, we’d need to get close enough to talk to him,” Blake added.  “Not that he would talk to me anyway, as I’m apparently Faunus scum.” She paused. “But there might be a way.”

The others looked at her expectantly.

“The Polyjuice potion.  Oobleck mentioned it in class, that the recipe is in the library.  It would allow us to turn into Slytherins and get into their common area, which would probably let us talk to Winchester while he’s disarmed enough to give us real answers, rather than insults.”

Nora frowned. “But any potion like that’s bound to be in the restricted section.  It’d be really suspicious if we just asked Oobleck to take out the book.”

A smile crept across Yang’s face.  “Who ever said we were asking Oobleck?”

 

That night, Yang found herself alone with Ruby in their room while Nora and Blake played Wizarding Chess in the common room.

“You’ve been acting really weird lately,” Yang observed.

“It’s just really busy,” Ruby replied.  “Quidditch and all that. I’m fine, Yang.  Really.”

“Promise?”

“Promise,” Ruby said with a small smile.

“Well, remember that I’m here if you need anything.”

“Heard that one loud and clear, sis.”

And when Yang went to bed that night, she wasn’t worried.  Ruby was just being Ruby--she’d never been as laid-back as Yang and she had Quidditch on top of everything else.  She had good reason to be stressed, Yang figured.


	6. Beginning the Potion

They sent Nora to get the book.  A favorite of Lockhart’s, she often participated in the reenactments of his books with great enthusiasm.  After class, Nora swept her hair out of her face and gathered her books before heading to Lockhart’s desk.

“So, Professor, I was thinking--I want to do some extra research about the potions in your books.  Could I get this out of the library?” Nora brandished her slip of parchment requesting  _ Moste Potente Potions _ from the library’s Restricted section.  “Professor Oobleck said that it was really detailed about venoms and such.”

Lockhart didn’t even look at the slip before signing it.  “I’m sure no one will mind my indulging a student with quite an academic interest in Defense,” he proclaimed.  “And quite an enthusiastic one too, Miss Valkyrie.”

“Thanks, Professor!”  She joined the others in the hallway, waving the slip.  “He didn’t even ask any questions!” she cackled.

 

They decided to make Moaning Myrtle’s bathroom their base of operations.  For one, no one ever went in there--it was just too uncomfortable to try and do one’s business with a ghost wailing about how much she wanted to die in the next stall over.  For two, it was right near where the message had appeared, which was their only bit of evidence as to where the entrance to the Chamber might be, if it existed. This meant they’d have lots of opportunities to search for clues in the area.

But it also meant that Ren wouldn’t get in on their plan.

“I am not going to sneak in and out of a girl’s bathroom,” he said.  “I’ll help you, but I’m not going in there to make the potion.”

So for now, it was just Yang, Blake, and Nora huddled over the book in the stall farthest from the door.

“No wonder this was in the Restricted section,” Yang marveled as they paged through  _ Most Potente Potions _ and saw the gruesome images and disgusting potions therein. The Polyjuice Potion page was decorated with people halfway transformed into others.

“Most of the ingredients are in the student supply,” Blake noted, after a minute of upside-down reading.  “But I don’t know where we’re going to get bicorn horn, boomslang skin, or bits of the people we want to transform into.”

“Ewww,” Nora said, but the others ignored her.

“And how long will this take?”

Blake thought for a moment.  “About a month.”

“That’s too long!”

Blake narrowed her eyes in annoyance.  “It’s the best we can do.”

 

As the month wore on, the girls prepared what they could of the potion in the abandoned bathroom, only having a ghost for company.

Then Jaune got attacked.

The news spread through the school like wildfire.  

And the girls knew their time was running out.  The monster had come for one of their friends.

So they came up with a plan to steal the next important ingredients.

 

Blake, being the fastest and stealthiest of the bunch, would do the actual theft from Oobleck’s office.

Yang and Nora had done their preparation.  The day’s lesson was supposed to be swelling solutions.  They’d gone to the library over the weekend to research the brew, and found that the addition of extra salamander eyes could potentially make it explode.

Conveniently, nothing was mentioned about this in the textbook besides a warning to measure properly.

Nora volunteered to take the fall.

That day, she purposely measured the salamander eyes wrong.  “Turn your back and make notes,” Nora whispered to Ren as she walked past him to their cauldron with the portion. 

“Why?”

“Just do it.”

So Ren made notes, which gave him plausible deniability for when Nora’s potion exploded, splashing everyone around them with boiling swelling solution.  Nora, genuinely surprised by the pain, fell backwards and knocked her head on a clawed cauldron foot.

Professor Oobleck ran over to them and the surrounding students, most of whom had also shouted in pain and surprise as their exposed skin began to swell.

He attended to Nora first, who sat up as blood dripped from a cut on the back of her head and matted her red hair.

A quick spell later, and the swellings on her face and arms vanished, yet the worst of the burns remained.  

“It was just an accident,” Nora said balefully, surprised to find herself genuinely embarrassed about what had happened.

“I see that,” Professor Oobleck.  He turned to Ren. “Please accompany Miss Valkyrie to the infirmary.  It appears she hit her head rather hard. Anyone who was hit by the spray, please come and see me.”

And as Nora and Ren went out into the hallway, they heard their Professor continue.  “And let that be a reminder to us all to measure twice and pour once! Always follow instructions!”

Ren waited until they had turned the corner and made their way up the stairs out of the dungeons to ask what had happened.

“It’s for the potion,” Nora whispered, giving him a weak grin.


	7. The Slytherin King

On his way back, Ren found himself pondering his situation.  Nora was actually going through with this, and had put herself in danger to make it work.  Concussed, he’d heard Madame Pomfrey say as she tutted over Nora in the waiting room.

She was just too enthusiastic for her own good.

A greeting from Hagrid jolted him out of his own head.  “Ren. What’re you doing here?”

“Nora hit her head in Potions,” he explained.  “I took her to Madame Pomfrey. How have you been?”

Hagrid shook his head and snow fell from his hair.  He held up a stained burlap sack. “Chickens. Something’s killin’ ‘em and I need to get permission to charm their pen and keep it out.”

Ren raised one hand to wave.  “Good luck. I should get back to class.”

Hagrid waved back. “You tell Nora I hope she feels better soon.”

Ren continued until he made his way to a darkened hall.  That was odd. Looked like one of the windows had been broken at the other end--

Then he stopped as his foot hit something solid.  He looked down and saw a boy’s stone body on the floor.  Above him floated Nearly-Headless Nick, frozen still with a look of surprise on his face, his bright glowing form reduced to black vapor.

Ren turned to leave, but Peeves floated out from behind him.  “Attack!” he screamed. “Attack! Neither mortal nor ghost is safe from the beast!  Run for your lives!”

The hallway filled with people and chaos and Ren found himself being shoved into the wall as everyone panicked.

The moment didn’t feel real.

Professor Goodwitch raised her wand and set off a firecracker spell to get everyone’s attention and ordered the students to return to their classes.

Ren found himself to be, once again, the only one in the hallway.

Goodwitch leveled her stern gaze at him.  “Lie, follow me.”

 

Glynda accompanied him to Ozpin’s office, a spacious room at the top of a high tower filled with magical goods.  Ozpin was not yet there, but Goodwitch had to leave to follow up on the Petrified student and ghost.

Gingerly, Ren sat on a chair opposite the one behind the desk and watched a beautiful red-and-gold bird in front of the window preen itself and cluck at him.

Ren would have enjoyed the sight if it weren’t for the fear that he’d be thrown out of the only home he could clearly remember.

Finally, Ozpin entered, followed by Hagrid.  “Lie Ren had nothing to do with the attacks! I jus’ saw him right before, he wouldn’ta had time--”

“Hagrid, I believe you,” Ozpin interrupted him.  “Ren is not behind the attack.”

Hagrid stopped on the top step, and he was still taller than Ozpin.  “Okay, then. I best be heading back.”

The door shut behind him as Ozpin came in and went to his desk.  “You don’t think I did it.” Ren wasn’t sure if he was asking or observing.

“No, I don’t.  But if there is anything you would like to tell me, please feel free.”

“I’m afraid not, Professor.  The year is going relatively well for me.”

And with that, he was allowed to leave, but he stopped and turned.  “You have a beautiful bird.”

“Thank you, Ren.  Fawkes is a phoenix.  They make quite loyal pets.”  Ozpin turned to gaze fondly at the bird.

The next time he went to the library, Ren asked for books about phoenixes.

 

Twice now, Ruby had lost time, only to wake up covered in blood and somewhere she didn’t remember going.

She no longer trusted Cinder.

She needed to get rid of the journal--soon.


	8. Potion in Action

It didn’t take long for Cardin to show up and approach them at the Slytherin table.  “Are you finally finished eating?” he asked, ire clear in his voice.

“Yeah,” Nora-as-Russel said dully.

“Good.  I’ve got something hilarious to show you.  My father sent it,” he gloated quietly, and the girls followed him to the Slytherin common room, feeling increasingly out of place.  It was much darker and colder than the Gryffindor’s own.

Cardin headed off to his room to grab whatever it was he wanted them to see, and the other three sat, trying to look natural.

Cardin returned with a newspaper clipping, which he shoved at them.  Blake-as-Dove grabbed it and the others huddled around her.

 

_ INQUIRY AT THE MINISTRY OF MAGIC _

Ghira Belladonna, legal advocate for Faunus rights, today resigned from the his position as leader of the White Fang following months of Faunus and Wizard protests.

Mr. Jacques Schnee, a governor of Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry, supports the White Fang’s change in leadership.

“Belladonna tried his best, but he has no backbone for this work,” Mr. Schnee told our reporter.  “We believe that bringing Sienna Kahn to the head of the White Fang will ultimately improve Faunus-Ministry relationships.”

Belladonna and his wife declined to comment on this story.

 

Yang forced a laugh, but it sounded stilted, even to her.  Nora cracked a dead-looking smile. 

“It’s just so brilliant for Schnee’s father to have commented on that,” Winchester said.  “What with Weiss turning into a social justice freak and all that. They should have put her in Gryffindor with all of the other freaks and fleabags.  Not to mention that the whole Faunus rights movement is just going to go downhill from here anyway. Belladonna was a pushover, but Kahn’s just one of those cats that can’t keep her claws in her paws.  She’ll piss everyone off eventually, and the White Fang will just be back to square one.”

Blake growled, and Cardin’s eyes turned to her.  

“Sorry, I just don’t feel well,” she said quickly, covering for her anger.

“Well, get on to the hospital wing, then,” Cardin snapped.  “Speaking of the hospital wing, isn’t it odd that the attacks aren’t being reported in the Daily Prophet yet?”  He smiled as he thought. “Ozpin’s probably hiding it. If word got out, he’d be sacked. Father says he’s the worst headmaster ever, opening Hogwarts to Faunus as well as humans.”

“You gotta know something about it though.  Wasn’t your daddy here the last time the Chamber opened?” Yang asked.

Cardin huffed in frustration.  “As I keep telling you, Sky, I don’t know anything.  My father refuses to tell me because it would look suspicious.  But,” and his eyes lit up, “last time, a Mudblood died. To be honest, I think it’ll be Belladonna this time.  That girl has got hell coming to her if she keeps acting above her station.”

“Who did it last time?” Nora asked.

Cardin shrugged.  “Father says they were expelled.  I bet they’re still in Azkaban. Either way, I’m not to get mixed up in it.  The Heir of Slytherin is doing good work, and I wouldn’t want to hinder them or get myself expelled too.”

Yang exchanged glances with Blake and noticed dark ears beginning to sprout from her friend’s head.  Blake’s expression betrayed that Yang must also be changing back.

“I think I’m gonna go to the hospital wing,” Blake said quickly, and the three girls ran out of there as fast as they could, bolting to the bathroom as their clothes became looser and larger and their hair elongated.

Once they were back in their own clothes, they sat down to discuss.  

“So it’s not Winchester,” Yang said, sounding disappointed.  “But we know he’s a racist piece of scum.”

“I need to write to my dad,” Blake said, fidgeting nervously.  “I knew they were trying to get him to resign, but I know he wouldn’t have done it if there weren’t a good replacement.  Sienna...she’s violent. It sounds a lot like people want there to be a human-Faunus war.”

“I had no idea you were related to Ghira Belladonna,” Yang marveled.  “Why didn’t you mention anything before?”

Blake shrugged.  “People have judged me based on who my parents were before.  I decided when I came to Hogwarts that I’d rather have real friends than people who like my family’s political stance.”

Yang smiled.  “Well, I think you’re cool for who you are.”

Blake smiled back.

Nora awkwardly raised her hand, interrupting the moment.  “Excuse me, but what’s the White Fang?”

“It’s a Faunus rights group that my father used to lead,” Blake explained.  “We used to only protest nonviolently, but recently splinter groups have begun committing violence in the name of Faunus equality under the banner of the White Fang, even though the White Fang has never supported those methods before.”

“Ah.”  Nora nodded.

“Well, that brings us back to where we were at the beginning of the year,” Yang mused.  “Who is the Heir of Slytherin?”


	9. The Book

Ruby finally made up her mind as to what to do with the journal: chuck it back where she’d found it.  Hopefully, it would be destroyed and no one would be the wiser. It was really scaring her now, and she really didn’t trust Cinder Fall at all.

Before classes one Monday morning, she slipped back into Myrtle’s bathroom and threw the journal into a toilet, using the end of her wand to jam it in there good and tight.

Now there wouldn’t be any more blackouts.  No more weird dreams. Everything could go back to normal, and no one would be any the wiser.

 

Until Nora found the diary.

She didn’t mind going into Myrtle’s bathroom all that much.  She’d known much worse people, and Myrtle seemed mostly harmless, just sad.  Besides, with no one else being willing to use it, she always had the whole space to herself.

“What’s up?” she said, slipping in after hearing Myrtle’s wailing all the way from the hallway.

The ghost floated up out of a toilet.  “Someone threw a book at me!” she wailed.  “You’d think no one would stoop so low as to throw books at a dead girl, but no--it’s their new hobby!”  And with that, she broke into another round of heaving sobs.

By now, Nora had become savvy enough to Myrtle’s ways that she knew not to mention death or being a ghost.  “That’s awful!” She tried to look distraught. “Did you see who did it?”

“No!  I was just minding my own business!” 

Nora looked around and spotted the book lying on the floor under the sinks.  She went and got it, flipping through the blank pages. It looked like your standard Muggle planner with a black faux leather cover.  Inside the cover, someone had written the initials C.F., and a date 50 years prior was listed.

“This is an old book,” Nora muttered.  “Wonder where anyone found it.”

“Do whatever you want with it.  Just don’t throw it at me,” Myrtle said miserably.

Nora waved at the ghost as she put the book in her bag.  “Thanks, Myrtle!”

 

Nora forgot about the book as classes picked up as spring drew closer.  It sat at the bottom of her bag, unnoticed and untouched, until her bag broke in the hallway.

Ink, parchment, assignments, trinkets--everything went everywhere, skittering across the floor as if to cause the most disruptive mess possible.

“Shoot,” she said quietly, and began gathering her things, chasing quills and her notes across the floor as people kicked them, unknowing or uncaring.  She almost forgot about the little journal until someone picked it up.

Cardin Winchester held up the journal and paged through it.  “Where would a little vagrant have gotten a journal as nice as this, I wonder?” he mused.  Sky and Dove sneered at her. 

“Give it!” Nora demanded, but Winchester held it just out of her reach.

Then he wasn’t holding it anymore.

Weiss had snatched it out of his hand and was walking back towards Nora, holding it tightly to her chest so no one could get a hold of it.

“Don’t be a brat, Winchester.  Slytherins should be above petty theft.”  

But even though Weiss was so above-it-all as to no longer reside on planet Earth, Nora was grateful for her help.

 

That evening, after everyone had gone to bed, Nora pulled the journal from where she’d hidden it in her trunk and decided to try writing in it.

 

My name is Nora Valkyrie.

 

_ Hello, Nora Valkyrie.  My name is Cinder Fall.  How did you come across my diary? _

 

Someone threw it in a toilet.

 

_ Then I suppose I made a good choice in recording my memories without ink.  But there is a very real possibility that people would rather my diary disappear forever. _

 

Why?

 

_ I have memories of events long past at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry.  Secrets that were buried and covered up. Terrible memories, which I’m sure the school would rather not revisit. _

 

Believe it or not, I’m AT Hogwarts.  And horrible stuff IS happening. People are saying that the Chamber of Secrets is being opened.  Do you know what that is?

 

_ Of course.  They told us it was only a legend, but they lied.  The Chamber opened and the monster killed a student in my fifth year at school.  I caught him, the boy who opened the Chamber. But I could never tell anyone. Professor Dippet forbade me.  He was scared. Scared someone would drag his precious school through the mud, and look what happened: the Chamber opened again, and more people are going to die. _

 

Three attacks have already happened.  How many more before someone dies?

 

_ My girl, that is the question.  But if you believe knowing who it was last time would help, I can show you exactly what happened.  Someone needs to put a stop to this. _

 

_ Let yourself see. _

 

Nora hesitated before writing an affirmative.

 

The diary opened to the page for June 13, where an image began to appear--dull at first, and then sharpening.  Nora brought it closer to her face to see better, but found herself tumbling through the book and into another world.

Nora found herself on a spiral staircase, following a girl slightly older than herself, tall, with long, dark hair.  She frowned as she walked. A Head Girl badge twinkled on her breast.

Nora got the feeling that this was Cinder.

She followed her down through the tower and into the entrance hall, where they saw another teacher, one Nora recognized.  Professor Ozpin.

“Miss Fall, it would probably be a good idea to get to bed, would it not?”

Cinder looked up.  “Of course, sir. I was just on my way there right now.”  But instead of going to Slytherin’s common room, she headed downstairs, past the entrance to the Slytherin dorms and into the dungeon they used for potions, and she waited, crouched by a crack she’d left in the door, for what felt like ages to Nora.

Nora sat down on a desk and swung her legs to pass the time.

Finally, a silhouette passed the door and Cinder slipped out.  Nora followed her as they silently tracked the shadowy figure through the hallway.

The large boy crouched down with a box at the end of the passage.  “C’mon, gotta get in the box,” he muttered to something.

Cinder waited until he was deep in thought to speak.  “Evening, Rubeus.”

A young Hagrid jumped out of his skin.  “Cinder! What are you doing here?”

“It’s over, Rubeus.  I’m going to have to turn you in.  They’re talking about shutting down Hogwarts if the attacks don’t stop.”

“What?”

“Monsters don’t make good pets, Rubeus.  You should know this by now.”

“It never killed no one!” Hagrid snapped back, pressing his back against the door at the end of the hallway.

“The dead girl’s parents come tomorrow.  Dippet needs to make sure that whatever beast killed their daughter in the bathroom is dead by then, that her death was avenged.  You do understand that concept, right?”

“He wouldn’t!” Hagrid pleaded.

But throughout their entire interaction, Cinder’s level tone never wavered.

“Step aside.”

Cinder drew her wand and cast a spell.  The door behind Hagrid burst open as he rushed at her, tackled her--and Nora woke up in her bed with Riddle’s diary laying on her chest.

 

Nora cornered Ren the next morning and told him what she’d seen in the journal.

“No.”

“Yes.”

 

When Nora returned to her room, the diary wasn’t under her mattress, where she’d put it.

As she hunted, Nora heard the door open behind her.  Ruby had come in.

“If you’re looking for the book, I hid it again,” Ruby said in a flat voice.

Nora turned. “Why?  Wait, again?”

Ruby’s voice began to shake as she wrung her hands.  “That thing--there’s something seriously wrong with it, Nora.  After I started writing in it, I started just...waking up places with no memory of getting there.  My hands would be covered in blood and Cinder wouldn’t tell me why. She wouldn’t tell me anything, and it scared me.”  Her voice cracked. “I saw you getting out the journal last night and didn’t want the same thing to happen to you.” She had begun crying, despite her best efforts to the contrary.  

Nora stood and walked over, wrapping her friend in a hug.  “It feels like I’ve hardly seen you all year, Ruby.”

“I didn’t want anyone else to figure out what was going on,” she admitted.  “I just saw you with the journal and I knew I had to do something.”

“Thank you, Ruby.”

They stood there, hugging each other for another moment.  “Quidditch match today!” Nora exclaimed. “You’d better start getting ready!”

And with that, they both headed out--Nora to think things over, and Ruby to prepare for a game.


	10. Dire Circumstances

The match didn’t even start before it ended.  

The players had just mounted their brooms when Professor Goodwitch strode across the field and used an amplification spell to make an announcement.

“The Quidditch match is cancelled.”

The crowd began to boo.

“Please make your way back to your House common rooms as quickly as you can.  Your heads of Houses will give you more information.”

Everyone began to file out of the stands and back to the castle.  Rumors began to fly that another attack had occurred, that it was a Gryffindor and a Ravenclaw this time.

 

Once her students had gathered in the common room, Professor Goodwitch gave her speech.

“All students will return to their house common rooms by six o'clock in the evening. No student is to leave the dormitories after that time. You will be escorted to each lesson by a teacher. No student is to use the bathroom unaccompanied by a teacher. All further Quidditch training and matches are to be postponed. There will be no more evening activities.”

She looked up from her parchment.

“This is one of the most troubling occurrences I have experienced during my time at Hogwarts.  It is likely that the school will have to close if the attacks do not stop. So if anyone knows anything, please come forward.  We need your information.”

Once she left, the common room burst into loud chatter, but it was all just noise to Yang as she looked around and realized something: Blake wasn’t there.

She’d been attacked.

 

And the news just kept getting worse.

Hagrid and Ozpin were both temporarily dismissed from the school.

Now everyone was afraid.

 

Yang dragged Ruby with her to the hospital wing to visit Blake, but they were met with a crowd at the door and Madame Pomfrey shooing people away.

“No more visitors,” she said tiredly.  “We don’t know if the beast will come back to finish them off.  I’m sorry, but we can’t have students wandering around…”

They turned back before they could hear any more.

“I just wanted to see Blake,” Yang muttered.

“Me too,” Ruby agreed.  

 

But as much as everyone tried to get on with their lives under increasingly drastic, paranoid measures, some things just couldn’t be ignored.

One of those was fact that Cardin seemed even more prideful that the Heir of Slytherin was still out there, still acting.

“Maybe now we’ll get a good headmaster,” Cardin whispered to his cronies during Potions.  “Goodwitch was too close to Ozpin, she’ll just bring Hogwarts more of the same.” Upon noticing Oobleck walking by, Cardin raised his voice.  “Professor, who do you think will take over for Professor Ozpin?”

“Professor Goodwitch is by far the most eligible candidate to lead this school,” he said sharply.  “Although I have no doubt that Professor Ozpin will return shortly.”

They waited until he was out of earshot before continuing.  “How could he support Goodwitch?”

Weiss turned to them.  “When will you get it through your thick head that not everyone’s as racist as you are?”

Winchester opened his mouth to reply, but Professor Oobleck clapped his hands.  “Time for Defense against the Dark Arts, class. Please pack your things and I will escort you to Professor Lockhart.”

As they walked through the hall, Ruby found herself walking next to Weiss.  “Hey.”

“Hello, Ruby.”

“You actually support Professor Ozpin?”

Weiss pursed her lips.  “Don’t tell my father, but yes.”  She thought for a moment. “He just has that sense about him--everything he does is deliberate and certain.”

Ruby smiled up at her.  “You’re a good person, Weiss.”

“Slytherin valued ambition above all else, not elitism.  Unfortunately, not everyone seems to remember that.”

Once they had all gotten seated in Lockhart’s class, their professor frowned at the expressions on their faces.

“Don’t you all realize that the danger has passed?  The Ministry of Magic has caught the culprit! This should be a time for joy!”

Yang snorted.  “Yeah. Hagrid’s the Heir of Slytherin like I’m the Queen of England.”

“The Minister wouldn’t have acted unless he was certain,” Lockhart replied, fixing his gaze on her.  “I would be less glib if I were you, Miss Xiao Long. It comes across as rather trashy from a young woman like yourself.”

“Did you just call my sister trashy?” Ruby demanded.

“I simply made an observation about the way people will perceive her in the future, Miss Rose.”

Lockhart turned to the board to write something and Ruby felt something poke her leg.  A note folded into a tiny square being held by Yang.

“One man’s trash is another woman’s treasure.  Ayy!”

Ruby looked over at her sister, who smiled back.


	11. Sneaking Around

It came to Nora in the middle of another one of Lockhart’s dreadful classes.

The student had been killed fifty years ago in the bathroom.  There was a bathroom ghost at Hogwarts. 

Could they be the same person?

She had to get Ren in on this.

She slipped a note onto his lap.  _ Follow me after class _ .

As Lockhart left lead them to their next class, he spent the walk griping about how teachers had better things to do than escort students everywhere.  Once the group of Gryffindors had gotten close to Transfiguration and to Myrtle’s bathroom, Nora spoke up. “Sir, you sound really busy. We only have a little ways to go to Transfiguration.  You could just let us walk the rest of the way on our own. We’d be fine.”

“You have a point, Miss Valkyrie.  I think I will let you walk the rest of the way on your own,” Professor Lockhart said, in the kind of hurried manner that indicates someone preoccupied with their own problems.  And with that, he headed back in the direction they had come from.

Nora grabbed Ren’s hand and held him back while the rest of the students walked forward.  But Yang noticed too and grabbed Ruby, but she shrugged out of her sister’s grip. Yang held back until the crowd dispersed before walking back to Nora and Ren.

Annoyance briefly flashed over Nora’s face--more people would make this more difficult--but she waved them on and dashed down the hallway towards Moaning Myrtle’s bathroom.

“What do you think you’re doing?” Goodwitch’s voice boomed after them.

The three students turned, looking sheepish.

But it was Ren who provided an answer.  “We wanted to see Blake,” he admitted. “It’s been months, and she must be so lonely, all by herself in the hospital wing.”

“We just missed her,” Yang added.  “It’s weird not having her sharing our dorm with us.”

Goodwitch seemed to ponder this.  “Of course this is hard for you,” she acknowledged.  “I will escort you to the hospital wing to see your friend, but only this once.  Until the attacks are stopped for good, I cannot have students wandering around unattended, you understand.”

The kids nodded gratefully.

 

Madame Pomfrey admitted them to the little curtained-off area where Blake lay, still as a statue.  Her face was frozen in an expression of shock, but a blanket had been wrapped around her.

“She’s so still,” Nora whispered, as if Blake was sleeping and too much noise would wake her.

“I wonder if she saw her attacker?” Ren wondered.

No one responded to that.  They were still experiencing a mix of shock and sadness as the reality of their friend’s condition sunk in.

“There’s something in her hand,” Yang noticed.  “Make sure Madame Pomfrey doesn’t see.”

Carefully, she fought to get the page out of Blake’s hand, but it tore.  Her rigid, curled fingers trapped the fragile parchment.

“Shoot!” Yang muttered.  She spread out the fragment on the blanket and they studied it together.  

“It makes sense,” Ren said after a minute.  “Someone had been killing Hagrid’s chickens.  The Heir would want that to happen, or else the monster would die and not kill anyone.”

“But Basilisks kill people with their gaze,” Nora countered.  “Why hasn’t anyone died yet if it doesn’t even have to get close to them to kill?”

Ren thought for a minute.  “Mrs. Norris must have only seen its reflection in the water.  And that one kid saw it through a ghost. None of the victims came face-to-face with it yet.  But it’s only a matter of time until luck runs out. I just don’t know how it’s moving around without being noticed.”

Yang gasped.  “The water! Each attack I know of, there’s been a puddle nearby.  It’s a giant snake, Hogwarts is a big building--it might be in the pipes!  We need to tell Goodwitch!”

“Break should begin in a few minutes,” Nora noticed, glancing up at the clock.  “And we need to catch her in private, because this is the kind of thing that freaks people out.  She might go to the staff room. We can meet her there, or else find someone else who will take us seriously.”

They thanked Madame Pomfrey and made sure the infirmary was out of sight before they started to run.

 

The staff room was empty when they arrived, which wasn’t unusual--classes were still scheduled, after all

Then an announcement rang through the building.  “All students to your dormitories immediately. All teachers, please report to the staff room.”

Nora grabbed their wrists before Yang and Ren could say anything and yanked them into a closet full of robes and cloaks that the teachers stored at the school.  “We want to know what’s going on, don’t we?”

Through a crack in the door, they saw teachers file in and stand around the large, wooden table at the center of the staff room.  Everyone looked somber.

Finally, Professor Goodwitch arrived and spoke.  “A student has been taken into the Chamber of Secrets itself.”  Her words fell like stones in the silence, and for a moment, no one moved.

Then the muttering started.

“Glynda, you are absolutely certain?” Oobleck demanded.

“Another message appeared from the Heir,” Goodwitch answered, her voice calm and low despite the horror of the recent events.  “Her skeleton will lie in the Chamber forever.”

“Which student?” Professor Port asked, almost in a whisper.

“Ruby Rose.”

Inside the closet, Nora clamped her hand over Yang’s mouth as she started to cry.

“Tomorrow, all of the students will be sent home,” Goodwitch continued.  “Classes will not resume next school year.”

The air hung heavily in the room.

Suddenly, the door to the staff room banged open.  “What did I miss?” Lockhart demanded.

“The man of the hour,” Oobleck said, his voice filled with ire.  “Tell us, how do we rescue a poor girl from the Chamber of Secrets?  If I’m remembering correctly, you’ve wanted free reign to fight this monster from the beginning.  Now’s your chance. What’s your plan of attack?”

Lockhart seemed as frozen as the Petrified students.  “I don’t recall saying any of that.”

“As our resident expert in Defense, the responsibility to rescue Miss Rose falls to you.  The students and teachers will be in their quarters until tomorrow morning. Until then, you have the free reign you wanted.  Unless you’d rather be the one explaining to Taiyang Xiao Long why only one of his daughters is returning home?” She paused for a moment while Lockhart stuttered.  “I thought not.” Goodwitch turned to address the rest of the teachers. “Heads of Houses, please make sure the students understand they are leaving tomorrow morning.  Everyone else, please make one last sweep of the hallways before returning to your quarters. Do not leave unless there’s an emergency.”

And with that, the meeting was adjourned.

 

Yang paced a rut in the common room floor that afternoon.

“You know what?  We should tell him what we know,” she finally declared.

“Wait, what?  Who?” Nora asked, Yang’s words having startled her out of half-sleep.

“Lockhart!  He’s so concerned with his own image that I don’t think he’d know something real if it rose out of the ground and bit him in the butt. Our knowledge might be the only chance he has to save Ruby!”

No one had any better ideas.

 

When they got to the office, the thumping inside could be heard from down the hall.  Nora pounded on the door, and Lockhart opened it a crack. “What do you need, Miss Valkyrie?”

“We have information about the monster in the Chamber,” she announced.

Lockhart glanced anxiously away from them before nodding.  “Come in.”

He opened the door to reveal an office in total disarray. None of Lockhart’s belongings were, well, where they belonged.  Half-filled trunks surrounded the center of the room.

“You’re leaving?” Yang asked, horrified.

“It’s urgent, I’m afraid--”

“But my sister’s still trapped in the Chamber of Secrets!”

“Not being able to rescue her will be one of my greatest regrets.”  Lockhart didn’t sound like he’d regret it all that much.

“You can’t leave now!” Nora protested.  “There’s Dark stuff going on and we need someone to defend us!”

“This was unexpected and unavoidable,” Lockhart maintained.

“With all the people you’ve rescued in your books, I would have expected greater enthusiasm from you, Professor,” Ren said quietly.

“You think I actually rescued anyone?” Lockhart asked, smiling mirthlessly.

“It’s all fake?” Nora sounded incredulous.  “Explains a lot,” she muttered, mostly to herself.

“You just made it all up?” Yang asked.

“I wouldn’t stoop that low, Miss Xiao Long.  I found those witches and wizards who would never become famous on their own and shot their stories to stardom.”

“And you called me trash!” Yang shouted, finally snapping under the weight of her anger.  She ran towards Lockhart and tackled him to the ground, pinning him down and twisting his arm painfully.  “At least I can wrestle.” She put more pressure on his shoulder. “Now help me save my sister.”

Lockhart whimpered.  Nora grabbed his wand from his belt and stuck it in hers before Yang released him.

“I don’t know where your sister is,” he insisted, rubbing his arm.

“Good thing we do.”


	12. Into the Chamber

They marched Lockhart to Myrtle’s bathroom.  “Hey, Myrtle,” Nora called.

The ghost floated out of a toilet.  “What do you want?”

“You died here, right?”

Myrtle looked proud.  “I did,” she announced.  “Right in this very stall.  I heard a boy in the bathroom, then I opened my stall to tell him to get out, the pervert, but I saw a pair of yellow eyes.  And then I died. That’s the whole gruesome tale. If you’re curious, that’s the sink I was in front of.” She waved to the sink at the far end.

“Thanks a bunch,” Nora said, and she, Ren, and Yang went over to examine every inch of the sink.

Lockhart looked astonished.

Yang found the trigger to the entrance.  A loose pipe join with a snake carved into it.  Out of curiosity, she twisted it.

“Woah!” Nora shouted as the sink sunk into the floor.  A deep, dark tunnel headed deep into the wall.

“You seem to have it under control--”Lockhart started, but Yang grabbed a fistful of his robe before he could wander off.

“You’re going first,” she growled.

Lockhart sat on the edge of the big pipe, a nervous grin on his face.  “Yang--”

“I would do as she says, Professor,” Ren interrupted quietly.

“Fine!” he gulped and pushed himself down through the tunnel.

Yang, Nora, and Ren went next.

They landed in damp dirt at the bottom of the slimy slide, each almost colliding with the person in front as they struggled to move out of the way in time.

The group lit their wands.  “Close your eyes if you even think you see movement,” Ren warned them as they pushed forward through the tunnel.  No one spoke. They didn’t want to get distracted in case the Basilisk showed up.

Eventually, they reached a roadblock as a drab green snakeskin crossed their path, its width larger than the heights of the humans below.  In fact, in their dim wandlight, no one was quite sure how large it really was--only that it was really tall.

“Well, that was quite exciting,” Lockhart said, from where he had crouched in front of the snakeskin.  “But I’m afraid I need to be going now. I was too late to save poor Ruby and you lost your minds when you saw her mangled remains.”  His voice had a new, sinister confidence to it. He thought he was going to get away.

“And Miss Valkyrie, you should work on hiding your wands better.”  He raised the wand in the air. “Obliviate!”

Although instead of finding their memories wiped, they heard a huge CRACK and the ceiling split open, causing rocks to fall.  Nora, Ren, and Yang tried to dive out of the way of the avalanche, but when the dust cleared, Nora found herself alone, covered in the snakeskin she’d shredded by trying to run through it to get out of the rain of rocks.

“Nora?” Yang called.

“Guys?” Nora shouted back at the rock wall.

“We’re here!” Ren shouted.  “Yang and I are fine.”

“Lockhart’s spell backfired!  Hit him instead of us!” Yang called.  “His wand broke!”

“Can you get through the rocks?”

A moment’s pause, then grunting.  “We can try!” Ren shouted back. “It’s going to take some time!”

But Ruby’s time was running out.

“I’ll be back!” Nora shouted.  “And if I’m not, go back and get help!”

“But wait--”

“Nora!”

Nora ignored their shouts and began to run.  Her feet pounded against the damp, packed dirt.  She ran through the tunnel until she reached a door engraved with a pattern of snakes, already open a crack.

She edged her way through.


	13. Valkyrie

Nora stood in a room as large as the Great Hall with huge, thick mossy pillars scattered throughout the space.  It wasn’t totally dark--from somewhere came a green glow that let her barely see her surroundings.

Her footsteps fell too loudly on the stone floor as she walked forward.

Nora held her breath, listening.  Her wand was still raised in front of her face, ready to counter a potential attacker.

This chamber opened onto a much-larger one with a huge statue in the center.  Nora was probably as tall as one of the stone man’s feet, but she didn’t even have time to look up at his face.  Something on the ground had caught her attention. “Ruby!” Her shout echoed.

Nora ran forward, sliding the last yard or so on her knees.  Ruby was curled next to one of the huge feet. Her chest barely moved, and for a moment, Nora didn’t know if she was breathing.

Her eyes were closed. 

Nora grabbed her shoulders and shook them.  “Ruby! Wake up,” she pleaded.

“That’s not going to happen,” a familiar voice said from behind her.

Nora turned.  The girl behind her looked familiar, yet odd.  Slightly unclear. “Cinder?”

“She’s alive.” 

“What did you do to her?” Nora demanded.  

“She did this to herself.  I didn’t make her pour out her soul to me.  The only thing I did was notice that there was space for me to put my soul into her.”  Throughout this, her voice never wavered. She sounded about as bothered as someone on a cloudy day without a Quidditch match.

“What do you mean?”  Now Nora seemed unsure.

Cinder’s tone of voice took on a slightly sinister character. “My dear, I’m only a memory, trapped for fifty years in a journal.  And Ruby wrote me messages for months.  _ Cinder, I’m not good enough at Quidditch.  Cinder, Yang snores. Cinder, Potions is really hard... _ and I listened.  Oh, she thrived off of the attention from an older student.  But I saw those threads--her fears, her desires, her secrets--and I pulled them until I fit into the space they used to occupy.  And soon... _ Cinder, why am I covered in blood?  Cinder, someone was attacked and I don’t know where I was.  Cinder, what did I do on Halloween? Cinder, I think I’m losing my mind.” _

Cinder’s grin widened.  “Then you got the diary.  Not nearly as useful as Ruby, I must say.  But she got the journal back easily enough.  You’re  _ shit _ at hiding things, by the way.”

“So Hagrid didn’t do it.”

“No, he didn’t.  But I’m Head Girl, a prefect.  He’s a homeless loser who gets detention for wrestling trolls every other week.  Who are they going to believe--an unwashed shaggy kid hiding werewolves in his room or the girl in charge of keeping Slytherin house in line?”  She laughed. “It was easy!”

Nora crossed her arms.  “It must have been harder the second time around.  You didn’t kill anyone this time.”

“Oh, but I will.  Trust me on that one, brat.  Ozpin’s gone and no one cares that you’re here.  What do you expect to happen?”

Nora was at a loss for words.  She was just a kid, all on her own.  And the chamber seemed awfully large, swelling around her as if it had consumed her entire world.

She’d just wanted to get Ruby and go.  She wasn’t prepared to stall for any length of time.

Then Cinder looked up, and her mouth twisted into a strange expression.  “A phoenix?”

Nora whirled around.  A brilliant red and gold bird soared in the air above her through the chamber, swooping around to land on her shoulder.

To be honest, for as scared as Nora was, she would remember this as one of the coolest moments of her life.

But the bird held something in its beak.  Nora took the brown, sacklike Sorting Hat from its mouth, a little bit confused.  She didn’t know how this would be of any use, but okay.

Cinder laughed.  “A bird and a hat.  Nice. Let’s see how you stand up to the power of Salazar Slytherin!”  She raised her hands above her head. “Speak to me, Slytherin, Greatest of the Hogwarts Four!”

The words were an incantation, and Cinder’s voice boomed with pride as she said it.

Nora’s head tilted back as she looked up to see Slytherin’s stone mouth open with a harsh grinding noise that filled the cavern.

Something moved within the dark maw.  Nora shut her eyes and backed up.

The Basilisk was coming for her.

She tried to run with her eyes shut as Fawkes took off her shoulder, but trying to feel her way made the process too slow.  She had to hope and pray that the snake wouldn’t crush her and that she wouldn’t open her eyes and die.

For some reason she was still holding the stupid hat.

A glob of something warm and wet and sticky fell on her head and Fawkes cawed.

“The girl!” Cinder screeched.  “Stop chasing the bird! Get the girl!  She’s behind you, you dolt!”

Nora opened her eyes in surprise.  Blood and vitreous humor had landed on her head, coating her in gore.  Fawkes flew around the serpent’s head, keeping its attention away from Nora.  It had poked the snake’s eyes out and the Basilisk was now too distracted by anger and pain to realize Nora was there.

No one would have just randomly brought an important school artifact to a chamber with a monster, knowing it could be trapped there forever.  So it probably had a hidden purpose. But what?

Nora flipped it inside out as she ran, but nothing there.  She flipped it back and felt around the inside--maybe an enchanted pocket?  She could feel something improbably heavy--and she removed her hand from the hat, holding a broadsword.

Not expecting its weight, the tip of the sword fell and scraped across the floor.  The sound drew the serpent’s attention to Nora.

Lightning quick, it lunged at her and she dove out of the way, just in time, scraping her knees and elbows on the cold stone.

The next time, she wasn’t so lucky.

Without the sword, she might have made it.  But whether she’d just been too slow, too tired, or just weighed down was immaterial when a Basilisk fang had drawn a huge slash through her stomach and now...now there was so much blood and time seemed to flow strangely, and her robes had changed color, but it couldn’t be her blood, could it, because Nora wasn’t in any pain even though she had been eviscerated?

And what was that white thing?

“That was the most pathetic fight I’ve ever seen.” Cinder’s laugh sounded too far away, too much like bells.  “I can see your organs, Nora. That’s not a good sign--well, for you it isn’t. For me, well, it was expected.”

Nora felt the world go fuzzy.  She didn’t even know if she was breathing.  Everything was nice like this, quiet and soft and peaceful.  Something felt really wrong, but nothing hurt. She didn’t have time to worry about it.

But instead of fading further, the world came back into focus, slowly but surely.  Her thoughts sharpened. 

Considering that she’d just been eviscerated, she should be dead.  She didn’t see her own bones anymore. 

Carefully, Nora reached one bloody hand up to her midline and ran her fingers around where she expected to find the rend in her flesh.

Suddenly, the pain flared as Cinder appeared in her vision.  “Get away from her, bird!” she screeched, kicking the phoenix away from Nora.

In surprise, Nora jerked her hand  away from her chest and it landed on something something wet and hard and pointy.

A quick glance confirmed.  A Basilisk fang.

Nora grabbed it and tried to sit up, but the pain in her chest and stomach flared and she found herself flopped face-first on the stone floor.  But something lay within arms’ reach.

“The Basilisk bled out as you did,” Cinder explained.  “I suppose that’s not lucky for you, though. You won’t win to me, not in that shape.”

Nora grabbed the diary with one arm and the fang with her other.  Although her body screamed in pain at the movement, she drove the fang through the pages with as much force as she could.

And Cinder screamed as her form faded, yelling curses at first before her strength faded and she proceeded to nonsensical wails.

Finally, silence reigned within the chamber.

“Nora?” Ruby asked.  Nora hadn’t known how long she’d been laying there.  The cold had felt good on her stomach. Moving felt bad.  “Nora!”

Nora rolled herself over onto her back.  Ruby knelt over her. “Hey, Ruby.”

“You’re hurt--it’s all my fault.  I’m so sorry,” Ruby said, and her tears fell onto Nora.

“It’s not as bad as it looks.  Not all my blood,” she explained weakly.  “Help me up.”

Ruby, weak herself, wrapped her arm around Nora’s midsection as Nora put her arm around the smaller girl’s shoulders.  She gripped the sword in her other hand, using it as a crutch. 

“The Sorting Hat!” Nora remembered.

Slowly, they hobbled to the wall, and Ruby went back to collect the hat and the pierced diary.  Finally, they proceeded out of the chamber.


	14. Out of the Chamber

Trying to carry Nora when she was already exhausted felt like a momentous task to Ruby, but she wouldn’t be climbing out of there on her own.  The red bird that seemed to be following Nora did so until they came to a stop by a rock fall in the tunnel.

“Nora, we can’t get through,” Ruby explained, trying to rouse her more.

“Nora?” Ren’s voice cut through the silence from the other side of the wall.  Suddenly, his face appeared in a hole in the side of the obstacle that it looked like the people on the other side had cleared.  

Ruby knelt to his level.  “Ren! Nora’s hurt.”

Suddenly, Ren vanished and Yang appeared in the hole.  “Ruby!” Yang cried. Her own face was wet with tears and she reached her arms through the hole to embrace her sister and bring her through.  “I didn’t think you were coming back,” she whispered.

But Ruby resisted.  “Nora should go first, Yang.  She got hurt saving me.”

Carefully, they pulled Nora through the hole, trying not to hurt her.  On the other side, Ren embraced her, holding her close as she whimpered in pain.  Ruby crawled through after, dragging the sword behind her.

“Where did you get the sword?” Yang asked.

“Nora had the sword,” Ruby explained.

The phoenix crawled through last.

“Fawkes?” Ren asked, incredulously.

“You know that bird?” Yang asked him.

“It’s Professor Ozpin’s.  I saw it in his office.’

“I guess he didn’t leave us after all,” Yang said with a smile.

Ren and Yang ended up half-carrying Nora through the tunnels back, and Ruby found herself apologizing.  Apologizing for not seeing the journal for what it was, for letting the basilisk attack, for trusting Cinder, for letting people get hurt, for not stopping, for--well, everything.

Yang let her speak.  She needed to get it off her chest.  When Yang got worried, she moved. When Ruby got anxious, she spoke.

Yang just wanted to tell her that she forgave her, it wasn’t her fault.  That no one had died, and that was what was most important. But she knew that there would be plenty of time for her sister to hear that later.

Finally, they reached the end of the tunnel, where Lockhart seemed to be wandering in a daze.  “Hello. Do you live here?” he asked them.

“What?” Ruby asked, mostly out of surprise.

“It’s a long story,” Yang said.  

“No, we don’t live here,” Ran actually answered.  “Did anyone actually consider how we were going to get back up?”

Yang glanced over Nora at him, worry in her eyes.

Fawkes swooped over and flew in front of them, fanning his tail feathers.  It seemed like he was waiting for something.

“Does it want us to grab on?” Ruby wondered.

“Oh!  Phoenixes can carry heavy loads!” Ren said.  “Yes, he’ll fly us up!”

They all shuffled around until they had a good hold on Ruby and Nora and Fawkes, then the phoenix took off, lifting them up the pipes.

Yang cheered and her voice echoed back into the chamber.

 

They landed in a heap on Myrtle’s bathroom floor and the passage shut.  Myrtle looked down at them. “Is she okay?”

“She will be,” Yang said, helping right her again.  Sometime during the flight, Nora had fallen unconscious.  She didn’t want to consider the alternative, especially since Ruby had come so close to dying herself.

“That’s a pity.  She was nice. I would have let her share my toilet.”  Myrtle sounded incredibly disappointed.

“We’ll let her know,” Ren said, and they rushed Nora out of there, reasonably certain that even in death, she wouldn’t want to be trapped with Moaning Myrtle.

 

They rushed to Professor Goodwitch’s office and pushed the door open, interrupting a conversation between herself and Taiyang Xiao Long.  “Ruby!” he cried, standing and his daughter ran to embrace him. Yang came too, and the small family embraced, all incredibly grateful to be alive together after such a hellish experience.

Behind them stood Professor Ozpin and Professor Goodwitch, both looking quite startled.  Nora was now only leaning on Ren, her eyelids fluttering open.

“We did it,” she whispered, a smile crossing her face.  “Got the snake.”

“Nora, are you injured?” Professor Goodwitch asked.  She knelt in front of her and lifted the tatters of her shirt, revealing the partially-healed slash across her torso.  Nora hissed in pain, her arm gripping Ren more tightly.

She beckoned Professor Lockhart over.  “Professor, help me lift her to the infirmary.”

“Me?  A Professor?” Lockhart said.  “Goodness me!” He looked pleasantly surprised.  “My, she is bleeding a lot. Someone should take her to the hospital.”

“That’s what we’re trying to do,” Goodwitch said through gritted teeth.  She shifted Nora off of Ren, who nearly fell over as he struggled to balance without Nora’s dead weight.  “Now lift her feet and follow me.”

Carefully, they carried her out of the room.

 

When they arrived at the hospital wing, most of the students who had been Petrified had already recovered and were sitting around, being observed or milling about.  Pyrrha, Jaune, and Blake stood in the center of the infirmary talking. “Please, we need to get through,’ Professor Goodwitch said to the group in front of her, almost pleading.

“Nora!” Blake gasped.

Madame Pomfrey directed them to put her on a bed and pulled the curtains around her before she started to work.  Goodwitch told Lockhart to sit on another bed and not move until Madame Pomfrey said.

With that, she strolled out of the hospital wing.  Well, she tried to, but someone stopped her.

“Is Nora okay?” Jaune asked.  “What happened? Did the monster get her?”

“The monster is dead,” Glynda found herself saying.  “Your friend saved Hogwarts.”

 

Neither Ruby nor Nora showed up at the feast that evening, slightly dimming the excitement of the end-of-year feast for the Gryffindors.  With everything scheduled, it wasn’t like they could call off the Hogwarts Express. But at least they wouldn’t have final exams!

Everyone was in high spirits.  Yang scooped Blake off her feet, Pyrrha was tackled into a giant group hug by the Ravenclaws.  People even told Jaune how much they’d missed having him around.

Ozpin took the stage.  This year, Gryffindor won the House Cup, breaking Slytherin’s streak--and it was all due to Yang, Ren, and Nora being brave enough to find and face a monster head-on.  Once again, the heroes for the moment found themselves mobbed in hugs and high-fives and cheered for.

When the cheers had quieted, he continued his announcements.  “We also have an award to present this year, although I’m afraid the recipient cannot be present.  It is my pleasure to present the Special Award for Services to the School to Nora Valkyrie of Gryffindor House, in absentia, for acts of bravery befitting her membership to Gryffindor House.  It is to my great relief that I can finally say for certain that the monster from the Chamber of Secrets is no longer a threat to Hogwarts and its students.”

 

When Nora regained consciousness, she found more candy than she could possibly eat stacked by her bedside, and she broke into a grin.

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you very much for reading. Kudos and comments always make my day. :)
> 
> And no, I'm not dead--just suffering from writer's block and the stress of college. I hope I can update more often going into the future, but that might not be a promise I can keep.


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